Balancing the books on e-government
Civil servants fear the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report on struggling IT projects will mean that all 111 public sector projects will now be tarred with the same brush
Thursday January 17 2008
In November it emerged that some 37,000 people filed their tax online at the Revenue Commissioner’s www.ros.ie site to meet the deadline for self-assessment. In total, approximately 99,000 tax payments were made online this year, up 14pc on last year. According to the Revenue Commissioners, online payment of tax for the year was over €2.2bn, up 4pc on last year’s intake of €2.1bn.
These are examples of e-government in action in Ireland and ones that countries around the world wish to emulate.
Last week the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) John Purcell released a hefty report outlining progress on each of the 111 e-government projects undertaken between 2000 and 2005 at an estimated cost of €420m.
The report said that in 2000 the Government set a target of having all public services capable of online delivery made available by 2005. Purcell said this was clearly unrealistic.
He acknowledged some services such as the Revenue Online Service, the Motor Tax Online service and services aimed at businesses have in general been successful.
However, he warned that the progress of some projects, including the €37m Public Services Broker project under Reach at the Department of Social and Family Affairs, have proceeded slower than planned.
The C&AG’s report is due before the Public Accounts Committee in the coming months and secretaries general, consultants and civil servants may be asked to account for themselves.
It is understood there is concern amongst civil servants that a wide array of well-performing e-government projects will now be unfairly tarred with the same brush.
A spokesman for the C&AG said there was no agenda at play to deride government IT projects. “IT systems are something the C&AG has been returning to periodically over recent years. Our job is to factually report on whether the public are getting value for money as projects should be maturing. If anything, it is an opportunity for departments that got it right to provide lessons to teach colleagues.”
Dr Joe McDonagh, a senior lecturer in business studies at Trinity College Dublin, believes the perception of e-government projects could be damaged. “When all is said and done, the departments still have a job to do in modernising processes.
“The danger is that with the negative press and opposition politicians making capital out of it, this could have a negative effect on public sector innovation. Major ICT investments are risky but public sector managers could now be more apprehensive and cautious.”
He says that to put it in perspective, the e-government project investments totalled €420m over a six-year period and projects such as Motor Tax Online and ROS are demonstrable successes.
“In this sense e-government adds up to €70m invested each year. However, the Government spends €51bn every year and employs 350,000 people in almost 600 departments and agencies. The e-government spend is peanuts in this context so the whole thing is blown out of proportion.
The main danger is that now people in government, in IT in particular, will be afraid to innovate.”
Seamus Mulconry, director of public affairs at Edelman, previously worked at Accenture and was involved in the early stages of major projects like ROS.
He too warns that a balanced approach to assessing the e-government projects is needed rather than a witch-hunt. “You cannot run a 21st-century administration using 18th-century technology. Putting government functions online is not just a matter of putting in a few computers but also requires changes to business processes, work practices, the adoption of new technology and often legislative change.”
Mulconry points out that for all the talk of government waste, there were only two failed projects cited in the C&AG’s report: the Reach project and the Health Portal, with a cost of €39m out of the total spend of €420m.
“The report in its thrust was fair and accurate. But most people who reacted just read the press release and executive summary. My main point would be that if you are to talk about 111 projects, it’s not fair to dismiss the entire e-government programme on a small number that had problems.
“There was a whole range of projects that were tremendously successful and delivered value, such as the General Registrars Office and ROS. This will need to be borne in mind when the Public Accounts Committee looks into the matter in the months ahead,” Mulconry concludes.
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